Corpn to re-lay 106 rain-hit roads

CHENNAI: About 106 bus route roads, including Kilpauk Garden Road, Millers Road and NSK Salai, will be re-laid and 71 pavements improved at a cost of 102 crore in less than four months. Footpaths on the chosen roads will be given a facelift.

Acknowledging that many arterial roads had already developed cracks and had been damaged during the two spells of rain, including during cyclone Nilam, the Chennai Corporation has decided to take up work on streets not laid in the beginning of the year. "The 130 roads re-laid this year will just require patchwork. Besides that we have decided to relay 106 roads that have not been re-laid in two years," said a senior official. The roads will be laid with bitumen and paver finish. Pantheon Road, Police Commissioner Road and Ethiraj Salai are among those where footpaths will get new granite slabs. The corporation hopes to start the work by the third week of December. "We have received information from the Met department that the rains will end by the third or fourth week of December, so we are confident of finishing it by March 15," said commissioner D Karthikeyan. "We have also included improvement of footpaths using granite slabs," he added.

The decision is expected to come as a huge relief to commuters who have been forced to undergo a bumpy ride negotiating large potholes that have formed over arterial roads such as Lattice Bridge Road, North Usman Road and Sardar Patel road.

"We have had just two spells of rain, and roads like Gandhi Mandapam Road have already developed two huge potholes," said Rajini Alagappan of Kotturpuram. General Patters Road, the only way commuters on Anna Salai can reach any part of South Chennai, is just a mound of rubble and bumps, others said.

The corporation is expecting another spell of rain in two weeks and expects that a few more roads will require repairs, but intends to start the work with no further delay. The last day for interested contractors to submit bids is December 6, so all details will be finalised within two weeks from then.

Towards the end of 2011, as the city was recovering from cyclone Thane and two other spells of rain, the corporation initially decided to relay 112 km of the 172 bus route roads, but later decided on around 130 roads.